Calamity Jane

When we left Texas we went to Boulder, Colo., where we kept a hotel until 1893, after which we travelled through Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, then back to Montana, then to Dakota, arriving in Deadwood October 9, 1895, after an absence of seventeen years.

My arrival in Deadwood after an absence of so many years created quite an excitement among my many friends of the past, to such an extent that a vast number of the citizens who had come to Deadwood during my absence who had heard so much of Calamity Jane and her many adventures in former years were anxious to see me. Among the many whom I met were several gentlemen from eastern cities who advised me to allow myself to be placed before the public in such a manner as to give the people of the eastern cities an opportunity of seeing the Woman Scout who was made so famous through her daring career in the West and Black Hill countries.

The following information about Calamity Jane is from a statement concerning her by Buffalo Bill Cody:

“She had friends and very positive opinions of the things that a girl could enjoy, and she soon gained a local reputation for daring horsemanship and skill as a rifle shot. Before she was 20, General Cook appointed her a scout under me. From that time on, her life was pretty lively all the time. She had unlimited nerve and entered into the work with enthusiasm, doing good service on a number of occasions. Though she did not do a man’s share of the heavy work, she has gone in places where old frontiersmen were unwilling to trust themselves, and her courage and good-fellowship made her popular with every man in the command.

Her old nickname was received in 1872 in a peculiar way. She was at that time at Goose Creek Camp, Wyoming, where Captain Egan and a small body of men were stationed. Captain Egan was wounded and had fallen off his horse. In the midst of the Indian fighting, it is said, the woman rode into the very center of the trouble, dismounted, lifted the captain in front of her on her saddle, and dashed out. They got through untouched, but every other man in the gallant company was slaughtered. When he recovered, Captain Egan laughingly spoke of Miss Canary as ‘Calamity Jane,’ and the name has clung to her ever since; so that while thousands have heard of her, very few have ever heard her real name. It was from her that Bret Harte took his famous character of Cherokee Sal in “The Luck of Roaring Camp.”